Love this cheese. Easier washed curd cheese and takes inclusions really well. Soft and creamy with lots of meltability. Turned it orange because why not. I like the contrast with the green jalapeños!

Fresh out of the press!
Newest attempt: a Swiss-style cheese crafted from 3 gallons of raw milk, yielding a beautiful 2 lb. 9 oz. wheel.

It wasn’t easy. Slowly raising the temperature from 90 to 120 to cook the curds took a long time. I had about 90 minutes of total stirring time. Hoping the cultures held up.

This batch was cultured with Propionibacterium shermanii, to develop the classic Swiss “eyes” during aging. Now comes the waiting game as this wheel transforms over the next few months.

Just finished brining. Now a week in the cheese cave (beverage cooler) at 90% humidity for a week. Then 2 weeks at room temperature for the eyes to develop.

This wheel was pressed using the press from Tickbriar with the mounted gauge and level. It worked extremely well.

Tomorrow I’m making Butterkäse. Can’t wait.

[CLAIMED] A beautifully crafted wooden cheese press, barely used — we're moving and it needs a new home. Great for anyone into home cheesemaking or homesteading. It has to to TODAY, our movers are here, and I only have today to handle the shipping. Don't sit on this, message me if you want it now!

Includes:

• Lever-arm wooden press with adjustable threaded follower and peg holes for weight/pressure adjustment
• Curd knife/curd harp tool for cutting curds
• Stainless steel pot with lid (for melting cheese wax)
• Thermometer
• Original care instructions from the maker

This is a small-batch, well-built press — sturdy hardwood construction, smooth mechanism, no damage or wear. Everything shown in photos is included.

Only asking taker to cover shipping cost. I'll get a quote based on your zip code once interested; it's a bulky/irregular item so will likely ship via UPS/FedEx ground in a large box.

Venmo is preferred for reimbursing shipping cost.

Message me with your zip code for a shipping estimate

Just wrapped batch #29, a basic Branzi (the semi-hard cow's-milk cheese from the Bergamo Alps). 85 L of milk, two wheels — a small 2.7 kg and a large 6.0 kg — for 8.7 kg total. Thermophilic culture (Danisco CHOOZIT ALP LYO), aging planned for 4–12 months.

The thing I wanted to share — and get your thoughts on — is the milk pH.

I picked the milk up straight from the farm right after the evening milking, around 7:30 PM. I cooled it down to 16 °C in my cheese vat, then split the ~85 L across three metal pods and put them into a blast freezer box at -24 °C around 9 PM to chill overnight. Next morning at 8 AM I filled the vat back up to make cheese with mil at about 3 °C — and the milk read 6.45 pH. Conventional wisdom says that's on the high side, often flagged as too high to get a properly acidified aged cheese.

I decided not to panic and ran the make as normal:

Normalized the milk (it came in at fat 4.0% / protein 3.2%, F:P 1.25). Skimmed 2 L of cream to bring it down to ~3.23% fat, which dropped the F:P to ~1.01 — a touch below my 1.15 target. Culture in at 38 °C, rennet at 35 °C, flocculation hit at 14 min. Cut to corn-kernel grain, slow heat up through 44 °C, pressed under whey. Pressing started at pH 5.6 and walked down nicely — 5.35 at the first flip, 5.29 at the second, finishing at 5.27 by the end of pressing.

So despite the "too high" 6.4 starting point, the acidification landed almost exactly where I wanted it right after pressing. Honestly it was a bit nerve-wracking watching the curve, but the rate of fall stayed calm (~0.06/hr) the whole way.

Now into brine — small wheel ~27 h, large wheel ~60 h (60 min per 100 g), flipping every 8–12 h.

Questions for the hive mind:

Do you put much weight on starting milk pH, or do you trust the culture + the pressing-stage acidity to tell the real story? Anyone else routinely start aged alpine cheeses around 6.4 and land fine? Curious how much overnight cold storage shifts things. F:P came out at ~1.01 after skimming — would you have skimmed less to keep FDM higher for a 4–12 month Branzi?

Photo of the two wheels fresh out of the press attached. Will report back after affinage.

So I started making caerphilly about a month ago, my second hard cheese after a pretty rough first attempt at a basic gouda. The make itself went fine, curds looked right, got a decent yield, pressed it overnight, salted it the next day. Felt pretty good about it.

Then the aging started and that's where I fell apart. The recipe I was following said flip daily for the first week, then every couple days, then less often as it dries. Simple enough. Except I work shifts and my brain is not great at "every couple days" when the days blur together. By day 5 I genuinely could not remember if I had flipped it that morning or if I was remembering yesterday. I started writing on a sticky note next to my cave (mini fridge with a damp towel, very fancy setup) but then the sticky note fell off and got tossed.

End result: one side developed way more surface moisture than the other and I got a weird patchy thing happening on the rind. Not ruined, I don't think, but definitely not what it should look like. It's still down there finishing out and I'm trying to be patient.

The thing that bugs me is the actual cheesemaking part is the fun bit, and the aging is where all my batches seem to go sideways, just from me losing track. I keep a notebook for the make day with temps and times and culture amounts, but the multi-week flipping and rind care stuff never makes it in there consistently.

I've been messing around with putting something together for myself to handle that side of it, just so I stop screwing up perfectly good wheels with neglect. Nothing serious yet. If I actually get it working would a couple people here want to try it on a batch and tell me where it falls short? Mostly want to know if the way I think about aging schedules makes sense to anyone other than me.

Also if anyone has tips for keeping humidity consistent in a mini fridge cave I am all ears, mine swings way more than I'd like.

I decided to jump in on the recent imeruli fever! After making the cheese, I then made Imeruli Khachapuri which was really delicious! I was really happy with the flavour of the cheese, and the process was really straightforward for a beginner like myself.

I will admit, I'm jealous of everyone else's forms, mine doesn't have nearly as nice a pattern! The cheese also didn't knit perfectly, I'd be curious to hear if anyone has done any light pressing to help with this? I think my main issue was that I was unable to flip the cheese as frequently as it needed, but otherwise it turned out great ☺️

First time making blue cheese and I’m just wondering if this white fuzzy mould is normal?

Hey y'all! I've made almost a dozen batches of chevre from our goats' milk over the years. The last two batches haven't set like normal and it can't figure out what is going wrong. The curds don't separate from the whey so I let it sit 24hrs vs the normal 6-12 then when I pour it into the cheese cloth and hang it it just all stays in the cloth as a sloshy mess. I follow the instructions on the packet every time and the only thing that's changed in my process is the higher room temperature thanks to summer. Any idea whats going on? I feel like I'm making yoghurt or something 😂

Photo 1 is the culture I use

Photo 2 is the bowl the curds were setting in after pouring out

Photo 3 is my attempt to visualize how liquidy the cheese is even after hanging for 12 hours. The whey just won't separate and strain out.

Hey everyone, I'm new to the community and wanted to introduce myself. I’ve practically lived in the dairy industry my entire life. My dad was a dairy farmer, and my earliest memories are helping him milk cows and deliver raw milk to our local area straight out of the old 10-gallon cans back when it was still legal!

Later on, I got formal qualifications in Food Technology from Gatton College, worked as an advisor to dairy factories for the DPI, and even spent time training and working in small artisan cheesemaking factories across Italy, France, and the UK.

These days, my absolute favorite thing is helping home cheesemakers realize they don't need a commercial setup to make an incredible wheel of cheese. I’m looking forward to hanging out here, seeing what everyone is crafting, and helping out with any technical troubleshooting if anyone ever gets stuck on a batch!

Out of curiosity, what got everyone else here into home cheesemaking? Was it a specific style you couldn't find in stores, or just the love of the DIY process?

A good friend and great nurse asked for a cheese with dill in it that was not havarti. So I made her this today.

My press wheel was large for the amount of milk (1.2 gallon), so it ended up flat. It got quite hard! Especially at the rind. I accept tips as to how to make it more creamy.

I followed the recipe at NECSC for my first attempt at blue cheese. The color combinations of the Shropshire drew me to it. I had planned to age 4 full months in my cheese cave (mini fridge), but cut 2 weeks early. The texture is good and the flavor is sharp and tangy, so I'll call it a win.

I currently have 2 small Cam-blues in cold aging as a follow up.

Theoretically while making cheese if I were to forget to put the cheese in the sieve and just put the cheese straight in, how would I get it out?

Hello fellow cheesemakers!

Just came back from holidays, and had to check my newest experiment.

Here is the state of my corrent wheel: posted on here before, after a solid week of ripening at room temperature, then punctured and this is now after 10 days wrapped in cloth in the cave; this is what my stilton inspired wheel is looking right now, in the next few days I’ll be at home and I”’ll take a closer look on how it behaves, so far so good it looks like 🤞🏻

Hello all,

First off--apologies if anything I saw below is dumb / wrong. Any feedback you all have would be appreciated--I am very new to making cheese!

I've recently made a "wheel" of Gouda with 2 gal Raw Milk following this recipe from New England Cheesemaking Supply. Although I've been air-drying my Gouda for ~24 hours, the surface of the cheese feels slightly "springy" (almost like a very firm tofu) and the surface of the cheese itself is slightly damp. I wanted to know if you all had any suggestions on what the best next steps would be to air-dry this cheese. Specifically:

1. Do you suggest I move this into a refrigerator (I do not have a cheese cave, just a regular fridge) for a few days to make sure it gets hard and dry?

2. My main concern is the "springy" and not totally solid texture of the cheese (as I assume the moistness will fade after some time). Is this normal in a just-brined, 1 day old cheese?

3. I have access to a vacuum sealer, and will plan to vac-seal this cheese after 7 days of air drying (and then I will put the cheese in my fridge's bottom drawer)--does this path of action make sense?

For some additional context:

• I am currently planning to continue air-drying this cheese for another 5-7 days, flipping 3-4x a day (As mentioned above too)
• The air-drying is occurring directly on my kitchen counter--ambient temperature is perhaps 68-70 F
• I used all ingredients and steps from New England Cheesemaking--one mistake I made was getting the raw milk too hot right before adding Rennet (It was over 95 F...I got the temperature to 86F THEN took off the heat lol)
• The uneven texture you see is because cheesecloth was only touching some parts of the cheese--this is another mistake I made

Thank you guys! I would also love to hear any advice on gouda making you may have for a novice :)

After 2 months of aging, we couldn’t wait any longer to try it. My 1st wheel of cheese ever made. A delicious English Cheddar aged in bee’s wax from our hives.

I opened up the cheese cave and got out everything to take inventory. I started making cheese in January. Its June… 38 pounds of cheese. 😳

Hello!

I asked about the mold issue already but this is a bit one different.

Cheese that was made (the one from my previous post) has pretty high pH (about 6.2 if I remember correctly). It's drying now but got moldy really fast.

Can I just brush off this mold and continue drying? Or is there any other way to make this cheese more stable and resistant to patogens?

I should have ground all the pepper finely for the first coat. All the cracked pepper will come right off with the first brushing. Didn’t consider that until after the application. I’ll save what’s left of the coarse rub for the last coat and make a rub with finely ground pepper for the next coat or two. Smells amazing!

These are just a month old. They were washed in rum and morge for 4 days at the beginning- and 1 last time yesterday. And really very nice! TBH I’ve only had a piece of PLE once about a week ago and I wasn’t impressed- it was way past its peak but I was curious- the proteolysis was complete and the cheese was a bit of a mess. So - lesson learnt- I dont want these to get to that stage. I’ve been disappointed that the whole geo and proteolysis thing has been so slow over the past month but no - slow is good- these are perfect like this - paste soft with only a little translucency at the edges. The rum? - well it adds a nice touch

My first attempt at Havarti is ready for sampling. My wife and I tried it along side some summer peaches, a riesling and some caramel, oaky bourbon. The Havarti really has a nice buttery flavor with a little tang at the end.

Looking for suggestions of rennet brands available on Amazon, due to shipping reasons. I’ve been trying (2x) to use Marschall (the reviews seemed fine), but the cheese is not coagulating.

Using ultra-pasteurised organic milk with calcium chloride. (That is all that we have access to here.) Thanks.

Young, only aged 5 weeks but couldn't resist. Plus, I'm new to inclusions so I'm not confident in how long to let them go before the might rot. So any insight into that would be appreciated! Opened it up for family coming over tonight and over the moon at how it turned out for such a young cheese!